Last year, while coordinating the development of Zambia’s third Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC 3.0), I met Fred, a 22-year-old entrepreneur. He spoke for a local civil society group at our final stakeholder consultation.

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He listened as officials set out targets and financing plans. Then he asked one question. How will this change the lives of people like us?

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That question should shape how Africa designs its climate plans. NDCs are often technical documents. They list targets, sectors, and costs. But a target only matters if it creates work, skills, and opportunity for the people who must deliver it.

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Africa produces less than 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions yet it carries some of the heaviest climate impacts.

Drought, floods, food insecurity, and energy shortages are already cutting farm output, the IPCC reports. The continent also holds 60% of the world’s best solar resource but barely 1% of installed solar capacity, according to the African Development Bank. The gap is not ambition. It is delivery. And delivery depends on people.

Build NDCs with youth, not for them

Africa is the world’s youngest continent. More than 60% of its people are under 25, the United Nations reports. Each year, millions of them, like Fred, enter the job market looking for skills, income, and purpose.

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This is the continent’s largest climate resource. Yet most NDCs treat young people as beneficiaries, not builders. That is a costly mistake.

An inclusive NDC starts with three questions. Does the plan create jobs? Does it build local skills? Does it leave the country able to do more on its own next time?

Designed this way, climate action becomes an engine for employment. Solar installation, mini-grid maintenance, climate-smart agriculture, forest restoration, and monitoring all need trained workers. Most of those workers will be young. Most of those skills can be built at home.

Inclusion is a delivery strategy

Inclusion is often framed as fairness. It is more than that. It is how plans get delivered.

Young people bring energy, digital skills, and new ideas.

Women carry much of the work in farming and household energy. Local and indigenous communities hold knowledge about land and water that no consultant can replace. Leave them out and plans stall. Bring them in early and plans move.

So, an inclusive NDC does three things. It creates jobs for young people. It builds capacity, so skills stay in the country. And it builds capability, so institutions can design and finance the next round themselves. In Zambia, where most people depend on farming, restoring degraded land lifts rural incomes.

From targets to opportunity

Africa’s climate future will be shaped less by global summits than by national choices. The Paris Agreement sets the framework. Delivery is ours.

Zambia has the assets, the institutions, and the people to meet its commitments and exceed them. The path runs through coordination, and through NDCs built with the young majority rather than around it.

Months later, I still think about Fred. He did not need convincing that climate action matters. He needed to see his place in it. That is the real test of every NDC. Not whether it sets a target, but whether it gives a 22-year-old entrepreneur a reason to stay, build, and lead.

When ambition meets coordination, and when climate plans create jobs and skills, global commitments become local realities. That is how Africa moves from meeting its targets to exceeding them. Not in theory, but in practice.

The writer is a climate change and sustainable development expert with extensive experience supporting African countries in climate policy design and implementation. He has contributed to the development of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and works at the intersection of climate action, economic development, and stakeholder coordination across public and private sector institutions.